Industry: Construction and
Engineering

Our challenges were
unique but not exclusive, so we sought the best solution with the best team
to maintain it. This decision ultimately has enabled IT to deliver more
value to the organization as a business partner.

Peter TaiSenior Manager of Enterprise
Infrastructure for the North American division.

An international building products and construction materials group based in Australia, with
a North American division that specializes in building products and fly ash, gained access
to world-class data management capabilities led by Commvault Remote Managed Services as the
result of an acquisition. Moving to a managed services model for backup, recovery and
archiving was a no-brainer, according to Peter Tai, senior manager of Enterprise
Infrastructure for the North American division.

“We didn’t want to be in the backup business,” recalls Tai. “Our
challenges were unique but not exclusive, so we sought the best solution with the best team
to maintain it. This decision ultimately has enabled IT to deliver more value to the
organization as a business partner.”

Technology Decision Becomes Business Imperative

Under Tai’s expanded leadership, a dozen IT experts support compute, storage and
network connectivity for approximately 4,000 employees in North America. His team also
collaborates with the 60-person corporate IT group worldwide to ensure all 8,000 global
employees have access to mission-critical systems, applications and data. When prioritizing
data integrity, Tai took a page from his playbook during a previous tenure prior to the
acquisition, where he replaced a half-dozen disparate and poorly performing backup and
recovery solutions—including Veeam, Veritas and Microsoft DPM—with a single
solution from Commvault, delivered directly by the award-winning software provider as a
managed service.

The goal: Mitigate the risk of data loss and bolster regulatory compliance while avoiding
massive capital expenditures on backup and recovery-related hardware and software. Equally
important was the objective to elevate operational efficiencies through the use of managed
services. “We see data protection as a utility—like electricity, air
conditioning, gas, water and other core services you need to run a business,” explains
Tai. “It’s absolutely something you need to operate and be successful.”

To that end, Tai’s team conducted an impact analysis to quantify data losses in terms
of revenue, productivity, labor, sales, customer satisfaction and more. Also examined was
the impact to operating expenses if an outside organization, like Commvault, was brought in
to oversee backup and recovery operations as an extension of his existing IT team.

Armed with this information, the team developed a compelling business case for data
availability. “If a half-million-square-foot manufacturing plant suddenly goes dark
due to catastrophic data loss, we could lose millions of dollars in minutes,” says
Tai. “The impact to our businesses, shareholders, customers and employees could be
devastating.”

Maximizing Uptime, Data Availability

The ability of the IT organization to articulate downtime and recovery windows in business
terms enabled C-level executives to readily understand both the value and pressing need to
increase data availability. By extrapolating how many hours or days it would take to recover
from the loss of a critical system or recreate vital data, the team was able to validate its
decision to deploy managed services. In evaluating different managed service offerings, Tai
identified Recovery Point Objectives and Recovery Time Objectives (RPO/RTO) for each
potential solution and the level of manpower needed to administer the offering.

It was determined that a minimum of two full-time employees would be needed to manage the
solution if brought in-house. Additionally, there was an overarching concern about the high
level of expertise needed to manage business-critical backup, recovery and archiving
operations internally.

Another major concern was the need to move data offsite for long-term data retention. The
company wanted to archive data in the cloud, specifically to Microsoft Azure, in keeping
with its enterprise-wide adoption of Microsoft Office 365. “Archiving to Azure was
important,” notes Tai. “Moreover, Commvault was the only software manufacturer
we spoke with to offer remote managed services directly. Everyone else provided services
through a channel partner, which we felt would slow issue resolutions. Working directly with
the manufacturer would facilitate issue resolution and problem management at a faster
pace.”

The opportunity to simplify administration and streamline operations on backup and recovery
would be liberating for the internal team. “Not only could our infrastructure team be
nimbler in how they responded to other IT issues,” adds Tai. “We also could
demonstrate to auditors that our environment was optimized for the highest levels of data
availability and reliability.”

Hands-off Backups Drive Hands-on Innovation

By implementing Commvault Remote Managed Services (RMS), the enterprise infrastructure team
realized a significant improvement in completed data backups. Over a 12-month period, backup
completion rate was 98.3 percent while the number of jobs spiked from 3,600 to nearly
60,000. “We have yet to run into an issue where data is corrupted or can’t be
restored,” says Tai. “As we move into our legacy data center environment, we
could potentially support hundreds of thousands of backup jobs with ease.”

Despite the rapid rise of backup and recovery requirements, Tai’s team found more time
to focus on strategic projects to propel the business forward. “I’ve taken a
total hands-off approach to backups,” Tai says. “I no longer need to know about
our data protection hardware and software. Having Commvault managed services experts we
trust means our internal team now can undertake more strategic IT projects on behalf of the
organization.”

To that end, Tai shifted resources from firefighting backups to working on innovative
engineering solutions. Since implementing Commvault’s managed services, the IT team
deployed a new virtual environment, migrated off legacy storage and upgraded the corporate
network at more than 100 locations.

More recently, Commvault Remote Managed Services are being expanded across the
company’s environment. “Because we’re seen as trusted business advisors,
our technology footprint is growing rapidly,” says Tai. “Instead of business
units relying on ‘shadow IT,’ they’re turning to us for all types of
value-added IT support.”

Improved IT Asset Lifecycle Management

With greater visibility across the organization, the company will be poised for improved IT
asset lifecycle management. The ability to quantify and qualify the number of incidents
expedites problem resolution and feeds into longer-term planning. Commvault participates in
monthly and quarterly business planning to review data uptime, utilization and growth
numbers as well as other major priorities that impact both near- and longer-term technology
roadmap planning. “Commvault is truly an extension of our own team,” notes Tai.
“They generate tickets within our help-desk system and assist in measuring Key
Performance Indicators (KPIs) on the overall health of our environment.”

These KPIs also shed light on equipment performance while helping guide and justify
technology refreshes, migrations and moves. This all-encompassing view enables the
infrastructure team to quickly and accurately identify performance issues before they create
operational problems. What’s more, the ability to seamlessly monitor uptime,
utilization and other KPIs informs investment recommendations as part of the company’s
five-year technology roadmap.

The ability to see farther out on the technology horizon is a boon to the business, a plus
for auditors and a relief for the team responsible for keeping everything running. “I
sleep a lot better at night now,” Tai concludes. “We do a lot more planning now
because of our Commvault partnership and every step, patch or upgrade is looked at from a
risk mitigation perspective. At the end of the day, all I see is uptime and that’s
what matters most.”

"I’ve taken a total hands-off approach to backups,” Tai says.
“I no longer need to know about our data protection hardware and software.
Having Commvault managed services experts we trust means our internal team now
can undertake more strategic IT projects on behalf of the organization."

Peter TaiSenior Manager of Enterprise Infrastructure for the North American division.

Learn more about how Commvault’s Remote Managed
Services offering lets you get the most out of your Commvault software without tying
up your IT team — while leaving you in full control of your data.